TWB June 15th 2019 Experience

Day 22- Kentucky

Hey everyone! It’s the Grumpys again reporting on today’s fantastic adventures. We were woken up by our counselors’ energetic yelling at the early time of 5:45. After rushing to get ready, we loaded up the vehicles for another long day of driving. The Sneezys served us a filling breakfast of a croissant paired with an orange. After breakfast, sleeping for the day was over because we had to focus on our last full day together. The bus ride consisted of heartfelt conversations between friends and loud country music. After a couple of hours of driving, we finally arrived at the Churchill Downs around noon.

As a group we were given a short tour of Churchill Downs and were shown where the racer horses are housed before their race as well as the race track itself. We also had the privilege of a clear view of the beautiful Kentucky Derby winner’s circle. Following the tour, we were escorted into the great hall for a viewing of a short film titled “The Greatest Race” in which we learned all about the history of the Kentucky Derby. While we were at Churchill Downs, we met Craig’s family. Craig’s wife made 180 peanut butter chocolate chip cookies before coming to see us. That must’ve taken so much time! The cookies, which we each got at least two of, were very good. Thank you Mrs. Ragole!

Once we left the Kentucky Derby, Craig drove us to a bus wash so that our bus and vans could look presentable tomorrow for the reunion with our families (and also so they’d be clean for the third and fourth trips). While waiting for the bus and vans to be cleaned, we were given time to work on our final competition with our groups. This competition challenged us to come up with a fun way to present our view on the last three weeks. As you can imagine, this included a lot of roasts and jokes from throughout the course of our 23 days together.

For dinner, we were provided with a catered dinner at the original KFC. This consisted of friend chicken (obviously), mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese, green beans, and a biscuit. Fantastic, warm dinner! A lot of campers bought the original KFC shirts so we were seeing a lot of twinning last night as people put on their new shirts. Once we were done with dinner, we drove to our campsite which was only about twenty minutes away.

Once at our campsite, our final competition took place. Although all groups put together a fairly funny presentation, the Happy group was announced the winners of the competition while the Dopeys were given the Overall Best Cooks award. To complete our night together, we had a quick sing along before separating to go to the showers. However, the girls quickly learned that our bathroom was flooded so there were no showers for the girls last night. Our showers at home tonight will just feel even better after two days of not showering. For our last night together, lots of people are talking about pulling all-nighters. We’ll see how long people last before sleep finally takes over. We’re all excited to see our blog viewers tomorrow evening at Mallard Creek! Grumpys out.

Chris Kurtiak telling us about Churchill Downs!

Emma Hooks telling us about the Kentucky Derby!

Jake Willis telling us about the State of Kentucky!

Ruthie's aunt met us at Churchhill Downs for a tour!

Craig's wife met us as well and brought us all some yummy goodies!!

Bashful's!

Dopey's!

Happy's!

Grumpy's!

Sleepy's!

Sneezy's! Our overall winners!!

Day 21- St. Louis

Greetings followers!! It’s the Grumpys again. Today we traveled through not one, not two, but THREE different states! We were woken up by a friendly horse, which turned out to be Josh at 6 AM. Many of us were tired from the night before because of the bugs and humidity keeping us up all night. We packed up our stuff into the vans and bus and quickly headed on our way to our first stop--- Kansas University!! Basically, this was our first glorified bathroom stop and all of us got to shop in the student bookstore to get t-shirts and stickers! Some of us even got to call our loved ones on the iPads and computers on display. As we walked back to the bus it began to rain, and that was our view for the ride all day long. Our very own Sneezy group provided us the real breakfast of champions: PIE! Apple pie, cherry pie, chocolate pie, pecan pie, you name it! Apples were also offered and we ate the pies with our hands. On the bus we had a contest to see who had the thickest country accent. Jacob Woods, Katie Blackmon, Hayden Armstrong, and Acerah Strickland were all participants in this contest. The vans jammed out to some music and took the much needed morning nap for the energy needed at our next stop, one of our favorite stores, Walmart! Many of us got popcorn chicken, mac and cheese, and Subway for lunch. If you didn’t eat that, you ate the lunch that the Sneezys made, which were rotisserie chicken sandwiches with chips! We were excited to have something different on our sandwiches besides ham and turkey. From Walmart, we were on our way to Saint Louis, Missouri to see the Gateway Arch! There we walked a couple of blocks and walked through the museum before cramming ourselves into groups of five to ride the elevator/ferris wheel/egg capsule to get to the top. We took lots of pictures of the bird’s eye view of Saint Louis and then came back down. In the gift store, the fudge appealed to our eyes and almost everyone indulged in a block or two. Originally, we were told that Migos, Drake, and Adam Levine were going to be performing outside when we came out of the arch, but instead we all witnessed an air show. We made our way back to the vehicles and half of the bus fell asleep on our way to our campsite: Carlisle Lake Campsite! Tonight the Sneezys decided to make us breakfast for dinner. We all engulfed our pancakes with sausage, eggs, and grits on the side and had a sing-a-long following our dinner… or breakfast. Some of us showered in the lake, which was a lot warmer than the previous swim at Bear Lake. Tomorrow we will be leaving Missouri and heading to the famous Churchill Downs in Kentucky. Grumpys’ out!!

More sleeping pics...

A glorified restroom stop! Kansas State University!

Madi Snipes telling us about Kansas State University!

We make healthy decisions on TWB!!

St. Louis Arch!

Checking out the museum!

Waiting in line to ride to the top of the arch!

Devin, Jacob, Cade, Jessie, and Casey at the top of the arch!

Savannah, Cody, Danny, Jenna, Sierra, Cole, Emma, and Marc at the top!

Joe, Marc, Ruthie, Emma, Ella, Ashleigh, Camryn, Amelia May, and Marina at the top of the arch!

Maddie, Marina, Emma, Alayna, and Kendall

View from the top!

Looking out!

Anna, Garrett, Lilly, and Sydney!

Happy Birthday Sydney!!!

Gathering around the birthday girl!!

Van rides are always fun with Lauren and Brandon!

We had the most beautiful view this evening!

Day 20- Kansas

Day 20- The Kansas Drive

What’s good?! It’s the Grumpys back with a brand new edition. We’re here with Anna Gregory, Olivia Wagner, Grace Kisting, Caroline Roseman, Marc Chroback, Hannah Rock, Jake Willis, Hayden Armstrong, Olivia Jones, Emma Lawing, Lilly Myers, Katie Blackmon, and Abbey Curtis. If you were hoping for an exciting blog today … you get Kansas. This morning we woke up at 7 am to the patriotic musical interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, courtesy of Josh. Happy 4^th of July! We had 35 minutes to get decked out in our 4^th of July gear and get our bags to the bus. Tattoos and face paint completed our patriotic looks, and cowboy hats and bandanas were not uncommon. We loaded up and arrived at our first stop about 15 minutes later – Wally World. Everyone ate their McDonald’s breakfast in a matter of five minutes before getting on the vehicles.

Our cooks provided us with a gourmet breakfast of Lucky Charms or Trix and half a banana. While the people on the vans mostly slept for the morning, the bus was the place to be today, because instead of watching the wheat fields go by, we watched The Greatest Showman, Kung Fu Panda, and The Goonies. After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived in Kansas! We stopped at the Kansas Welcome Center and hopped off the vehicles to use the bathroom just to get right back on them. We went back to our movie binge on the bus and the vans had jam sessions the whole ride. The vans took a detour to the Loves gas station to fill up while the bus went to a rest area around lunch and then headed back down the road through the fields of Kansas to take a look at an oil rig. On the way there, the cooks made the rest of us bagel sandwiches with turkey, cheese, honey mustard, and the Sneezy’s form of “lettuce”, which was actually cabbage. Fruit snacks and crackers were also provided and nevertheless, it was still delicious. When we got to the oil rig, Garrett Voorhees and Emma Campbell gave their research presentations and we got a group picture. The counselors decided to play a funny trick on us by running back to the vehicles after telling us to turn around. It didn’t take long for us to figure out that they were gone.

We arrived at yet another one of our favorite places, Walmart, to get dinner for tonight at the campground. Many of us got gourmet chicken from the Walmart deli and subs from Subway. Tonight at the Kansas State Park we were welcomed by the mosquitos and humidity, which told us that we are east bound and down. We had a competition called ‘Hug it Out’, where each group had a relay to pop balloons using only our chests. The Bashfuls came in first, making them the group in the overall lead. We had a lovely surprise of finding a snake by the tree we were competing under, which made some of the girls flee. We all hope that we don’t find another one in our sleeping bags tomorrow morning!! The cooks served us hotdogs, watermelon, chips, and red, white, and blue popsicles in honor of our freedom on this special holiday. Many went and took pictures by the lake, and the one and only Joe Flanagan even jumped in it! Following dinner, we had a fantastic sing-a-long lead by our own Jack Current. As we bed down tonight, we hope we will see some fireworks in the sky. Happy 4^th of July everyone!!